JANET SOBEL [NOMAD]

The Gallery of Everything returns to Nomad St Moritz with a spectacular installation of rare paintings and works on paper by Janet Sobel.

Janet Sobel is one of the great unsung heroines of 20th century art. Her idiosyncratic aesthetic was championed by collector Peggy Guggenheim, critic Clement Greenberg and William Rubin of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Sobel’s self-taught practice began in the late 1930s, after immigrating to America from Ukraine. These early works, inspired by her friendship with Marc Chagall, brought her to the attention of gallerist and curator Sidney Janis, who included a painting by Sobel in his show American Primitive Paintings at the Arts Club of Chicago in 1943.

Sobel’s practice included figuration, abstraction and experimentation; and she pioneered the use of drip painting. Her enthusiastic reception by the New York art scene included the support of Max Ernst and Mark Rothko, and the admiration of Jackson Pollock and André Breton.

Sobel was exhibited at Norlyst Art Gallery in 1944; and her inclusion in The Women at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century gallery (alongside Louise Bourgeois, Irene Rice Pereira and Kay Sage) led to her solo show in 1946.

Sobel’s work has been celebrated at the Royal Academy, London (Abstract Expressionism, 2017), Centre Pompidou, Paris (Women in Abstraction, 2021) and Whitechapel Gallery, London (Action, Gesture, Paint, 2023). 

A partial retrospective Janet Sobel All Over, opened February 23rd at The Menil Collection, Houston.

For paintings, please click here. 
For works on paper, please click here.

For an essay on Janet Sobel, please click here. 
For our publication on Janet Sobel's life and work, please click here.